Johnny Cash honored with a statue on the US Capitol

A Johnny Cash statue, a country music legend, will make its debut at the US Capitol in Washington, his home state of Arkansas having decided to replace his current controversial figures, associated with white supremacy.

Each state in the United States stores two sculptures in the Statuary Hall, a large gallery located inside the Capitol, building housing the United States Congress.

The two figures of the last century who represent Arkansas have recently been sharply criticized, against the backdrop of a movement demanding to bring down the symbols of the Confederate States, territories that defended slavery during the American Civil War. .

A former state member of the confederation, Arkansas announced that one of its two statues would now represent Johnny Cash, an icon whose titles, played with his legendary deep voice, have passed through the generations.

The author of “I Walk the Line”, who died in 2003 in Nashville, will be accompanied in this Hall of Congress statues by Daisy Bates, a black American journalist, figure of the struggle for civil rights, after a vote to this effect in the Arkansas Senate.

Daisy Bates played an important role in the fight of nine black students in Little Rock to be integrated in a high school in the capital of Arkansas, where President Eisenhower sent the army in 1957 to allow their integration.

The current governor of the state, Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, praised Ms. Bates as a source of inspiration, and described the civil rights struggle as “an essential part of our history that says a lot about our courage and on us as a state “.

“Most of those involved in the discussion agreed on the need to change the statues with representatives of our more recent history,” added the conservative elected.

The statues of James Paul Clarke, a senator and governor of Arkansas who strongly supported segregation at the turn of the 20th century, and Uriah Rose, a lawyer who supported the confederation, will be withdrawn.

John Cage has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining The Siver Times, John Cage worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella.